‘Huge’ Number Believe Crime Getting Worse But Poll Shows Upbeat Response To Many Other Aspects Of Community

Spokane residents think crime is getting worse in their community, but shopping and entertainment opportunities are getting better.

Most think their elected leaders are at least doing no worse than before, according to a new scientific survey. A significant number even say their local news media are doing better.

The bottom line, says an analyst for the national firm that conducted the poll, is that city and county residents have a fairly upbeat view of their community.

“It’s a very positive outlook,” said Del Ali of Mason-Dixon/Political-Media Research Inc., of Washington, D.C.

The poll, conducted for The Spokesman-Review and KHQ-TV, asked 408 local residents whether they thought certain community qualities and services are getting better or worse. Polling began on Nov. 19, but was suspended for two weeks because of the ice storm.

Crime emerged as the biggest area of concern in the survey, which has a margin of error of 5 percent.

Two-thirds said they believed crime is worse in Spokane, while only one in 10 said the situation was improving. The belief that crime is getting worse was shared equally by those inside and outside the city limits, who each constituted half of the survey.

“That’s huge,” said Ali. “Those are New York City-style numbers.”

The perception of a crime problem can vary from an actual crime problem, he added. The number of murders in the city of Spokane, for example, is down compared to 1995, although some other types of crimes are increasing.

Fighting crime was also one of the areas in which a majority of the residents surveyed - nearly three out of four countywide - said local government should spend more money.

The survey showed that nearly nine of 10 residents said government should spend more on streets. But those same residents were more evenly split on the quality of their transportation system.

One in four said it was getting worse, about one in three said it was getting better and a like number saw no change.

Residents were also fairly evenly split on their view of the economy, with 31 percent overall saying they thought it was better and one in four saying it was worse.

But the view of the economy differed sharply between the city and the county. City residents were nearly twice as likely to say it was getting better, while those outside the city were twice as likely to say it was getting worse.

Still, a majority of people said the economy has at least stayed the same, which is a positive rating for any community, Ali said.

“If things were really bad, there would be far more people saying it was worse,” he said.

Nearly half those surveyed said they believe entertainment opportunities have improved, although city residents were far more likely to hold that view. That could be a result of the new Arena, Ali suggested, or the concentration of other entertainment facilities near downtown and in north Spokane.

City Council members and county commissioners, who take their share of grief from the public at weekly meetings, came out fairly well in the survey. Only about one resident in five said elected leadership was getting worse, about the same number that said it was getting better. Half of all those surveyed said it had stayed the same.

“Those are not bad numbers,” said Ali, particularly when one considers that a wave of anti-incumbent, throw-the-bums-out fervor has swept the country in recent years.

And while some of those elected leaders are wont to take an occasional shot at “the media,” surveyed residents gave their local news media fairly high marks: 42 percent said they had improved, while 15 percent said they were worse.

That perception seems stronger inside the city, however. Half of all city residents said their news media have improved, while less than one in three outside the city offered that opinion.

The survey also asked residents to look ahead, to whether the next generation “will find Spokane a good place to live.”

Two-thirds of the residents - a nearly equal number inside and outside the city limits - said they believe that’s likely.

That may say more than the answers to individual services or features, Ali said. “Two-thirds of the people are saying it’s a nice place to be.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Graphics: 1. Crime perception 2. Community improvement